Battle Star Has Come
by Autobot Guardian
Summary: From lonely newsparked, to slave, to trainee, to mercenary, to gladiator, we now follow the path of the femme Battle Star, but is she really what she seems to be?
1. Chapter 1, A Journey Through Space

Battle Star always had it rough. She was once a slave, then became a warrior. Let's start at the beginning, when she was first created. Where her story began.

A lone femme awakened for the first time. She was in a tunnel, yet not far from the light of the stars in the sky above. Curious about the light, she made her way up, and gazed upon the stars for the first time. A single name came to her then. She didn't know where it came from, but it seemed to fit her.

"Battle Star….." She reached up, as if trying to snatch one of the stars from the sky, and was confused when her hand came away empty. She didn't notice at first, but she was being watched.

"Well, we've found a newly made femme… WITHOUT her creator. She seems to be currently easily influenced. The best kind. She shall make a good servant to anyone lucky enough to be able to pay the price we will have for her." The two shadowy figures made their way to the newly finished Battle Star, and almost went unnoticed.

Battle Star turned, saw them, and screamed. She didn't know that there were bad people out here- she thought the place was too pretty to have anything bad in it. Before she knew it, she was on the ground, and the two shadowy figures had fastened stasis cuffs to her wrists. She was immediately helpless- not that she knew how to fight then anyway- and the two shadowy figures were carrying her to a ship not far from where they were. After taking her in, they settled her in a small room with a few nice, pretty things in it, and took her cuffs off of her.

"Now then, robot, you stay in here, and we'll find you a home soon enough." The figure was more easily seen in this light, and she swiftly looked him over. He was about a yard shorter than she was- which was still pretty tall- and had smooth, grayish-green skin. He had two purple eyes, with slits for pupils, and his hands were long and thin, yet still strong. He had well-groomed blue hair, and he had a somewhat normal-looking mouth. He wore fine clothes, and had a gold pendant around his neck.

"W-why did you call me 'robot'?" She looked at him with pure confusion. The alien was taken a bit by surprise.

"Why shouldn't I? You and your kind are all robots. You don't even HAVE a name yet." Then, he suddenly had a thought. "Um…. DO you have a name yet?"

She stared at him for a moment, and then said, in a soft voice, "My name is Battle Star."

* * *

Battle Star stayed on the ship for a while. She was never allowed outside of her room, but the ones who had captured her always made sure she was entertained. However, they soon arrived at their destination. Guards came into Battle Star's room, and practically slapped the stasis cuffs on her. They took her outside, and she saw that several other Cybertronians- as well as a few aliens- were getting similar treatment. She tried to turn her head, but a guard whacked her, saying, "Hurry up! We don't have all day!"

They took her to a small building with the other Cybertronians – the flesh aliens were kept elsewhere- and the door was locked, leaving her in the cramped building with several strange Cybertronians she didn't even know were friendly or not. She immediately moved into a corner and tried to make herself as small as possible. Battle Star kept her legs tucked up against her torso, and wrapped her arms around her knees. The other Cybertronians paid her no heed. They could all hear muffled voices outside, and then footsteps approached the building.

The door was unlocked, and one of the guards stepped in. "Young femme, designation Battle Star?" She stood up, and carefully avoided bumping into the others as she made her way to the guard. He looked up at her, then motioned for her to follow her out. After her optics adjusted to the sunlight, she was taken to a large metal platform, and then chained to a metal pole on the left side.

"Now, we have a rare find for you all here! A femme, neutral, and only created a few days ago! Not a scratch on her! She is of a beautiful design, and with beautiful coloring of red, green, and purple! With her age and her beauty, she shall make a fine servant or nursemaid! Sure, she will need to be taught, but she's a fast learner! Starting price is 500 credits!"

And so it went. The people in the audience kept shouting out higher and higher prices, until a short Cybertronian mech in the back yelled out a price that none in the crowd could match. She was sold to him, and she hung her head as she was led away. However, what surprised her was that the Cybertronian did not take her with him to the Autobots –he had the Autobot symbol on him- but rather set her free in the Neutral Territory. Battle Star glanced at him once, then took off running. She eventually found herself in an abandoned city.

She wandered the streets of the empty city, trying to imagine what it must have looked like when it was still in use, but she couldn't. She soon felt weak from energy depletion, and set about trying to find energon. She found an old dispenser, and, in desperation, tried to fill a cube with it. Surprisingly, she found that it still had a bit of good energon in it. She drank, and felt relief as she felt her systems coming back to full power. Going back to her wanderings, she found that the city wasn't as abandoned as she thought it was. A mech, standing as tall as she did, wearing a cloak, with a sheathed sword on his hip. What she could see of his paint was red and purple, and when his head turned a bit to the side, she saw his optics were light blue, and that he wore a facemask.

She swiftly hid behind a building, but she realized that he had not seen her. She slowly peeked around the side of the building, and he was still standing there, noble and powerful, under the stars. She somehow felt drawn to him, though he seemed wrapped in mystery and shadows. She walked out, and fought the urge to run when he slowly turned to walk down the street and saw her.

"Who might you be?" His voice was soft, yet it seemed full of authority. He seemed important, yet she had never seen nor heard of any such as him before. When she did not answer, he said, "My name is Battlelock…. Battlelock Prime. Would you tell me your name, now that I have told you mine?"

She hesitated for a moment, then said in a shaky voice, "M-my name is Battle Star. But…. I'm not really that much of a fighter…"

"I will teach you." He offered her his hand. "Come with me?"

She hesitated, then accepted his offer, a bit dubious that she could become a fighter. Battlelock led her to a large building with a courtyard. She looked around, and saw evidence of a large Cybertronian using this area to hone its skills in battle. She saw blade marks, and dents where a foot or fist hit metal. Battlelock lead Battle Star to the right section of the courtyard, and showed her a computer that was still functional. She sat down, and started to read about different fighting styles of many different alien species, and also read about the Cybertronian fighting styles.

"Why are you doing this for me?" She looked up at her new teacher for a moment, and gazed at him with confusion.

He smiled. "There's something about you that says you were meant to be a fighter- and I'm not just talking about your name. You seem built for battle." He flicked the computer off, and motioned for her to follow him again. "First, let's begin with a basic sword."

* * *

The next few weeks were hardcore at best. At worst, she got pummeled so much that there was barely an inch of her body that wasn't sore. But she loved it. There was something about the sparring training that made her feel free. After a few more months or so, she was soon beginning to best her teacher. It was at this point that her teacher crafted her weapons. She was given four finely crafted weapons: a dagger, a sword, a double-bladed battle axe, and a blaster. She trained with her new weapons until she was able to switch her battle styles with them in a matter of moments. Her teacher started to learn more fighting styles himself, just so that he could let his student learn more. Battle Star Soon found a unique interest in the fighting styles of a place called Earth. That planet alone had many different kinds of warriors, and she wanted to master each fighting style as quickly as she could.

During one battle, she managed something that her teacher never could. When he charged at her with his blade, she put her own away, and leapt straight up in the air, spinning, and then back-flipped until she landed with her feet on his shoulders. She grabbed his shoulders in her servos, then swung her legs over her head, and when they touched the ground in front of her teacher, she heaved with all her might, and threw him into the wall. They were both stunned. They didn't have enough time to recover from the shock of her accomplishment, because just then the ground was peppered with laser fire. They looked up, and saw seekers overhead with a large grey mech in the lead.

"Decepticons! Take the building! Kill those two, and take the energon from their storage room!" The big grey mech was shouting orders to the seekers, and Battle Star heard her teacher say, "Oh, scrap. We're gonna be fragged." That was not a good sign.

They fought as hard as they could. A few times, they nearly fought free, but there were just SO MANY of those seekers. Battle Star was having an easier time than her teacher. Soon, both her and her teacher were overwhelmed, and her teacher was killed. When the seekers released Battle Star in preparation to terminate her, she leaped up-just like she had trained- and landed on one of the seekers still flying. She leaped from one flying seeker to the other, until she was on the outside of the mob of Decepticons. After she landed on the ground, she ran for her life.

* * *

"How much will I get for doing this?"

Battle Star was sitting in the middle of a conference room with a bunch of Autobots. She had seen the offer for hiring good fighters to help protect Ultra Magnus as he travels to Iacon Tower from the place they were keeping him after rescuing him from Shockwave's laboratory. She was currently talking to a young mech named Hot Rod.

"Let me check with my superiors. There's a different price for different hired warriors." Hot Rod sent a silent message to Ultra Magnus himself, then, after receiving the reply, turned to Battle Star. He said, "You will get ten thousand credits for doing this. To me, that's an insanely high price, but I guess that you get special pay for being a femme."

Battle Star smiled. "That will do nicely."

Battle Star joined the convoy in the tunnels. They were all walking, so that the guards could keep an eye out for danger. Battle Star was in the front, out of sight of Ultra Magnus. Suddenly, she halted the convoy. "The two behind me, keep going, and check those corridors that branch off. I've got a bad feeling about this place. And my bad feelings are NEVER wrong." The two she specified went forwards, and the corridors were suddenly peppered with laser fire.

"Scrap! All right, everyone clump around the Autobots! Make sure that we get them through safely! Ready? GO!" They charged down the corridors, firing on the Decepticons who were waiting in ambush. They got through with a minimal amount of casualties, and were soon past the danger.

"Is Ultra Magnus unharmed?" Battle Star turned, and the others behind her nodded. They were all safe. "Let's move out!"

* * *

After she did that job, she had enough money to buy a shuttle to get off the planet that was once her home. The planet had been dead to her for years now. Ever since her teacher had been killed. Traveling among the stars, she had a lot of time to herself. She took it upon herself to learn about things other than combat, using the already large amount of historical and scientific documents on her shuttle's computer. She learned about the War of Cybertron, the Primes, engineering, and other useful things. Without realizing it, she also learned more fighting styles.

"Oh, teacher, how I miss you." She leaned back in her chair. She thought about those fighting styles she had barely learned half of from that planet called Earth. Perhaps she could find some information on it at the next space port. She took back control of the shuttle, and pulled up her UPS (Universal Positioning System). She looked at where the nearest space port was, and set her course. Activating her warp drive, she took a special jump over to the port. She stopped the space jump ¾ of the way there. She went at full non-warp speed the rest of the way, and docked in a secure part of the port reserved for Cybertronians.

"Here. Make sure nobody gets in my shuttle." Battle Star tossed some credits to a pair of guards, and headed to the market. She immediately went to a stall that sold other-planetary information, and started to sift through it. She looked at the alien running the stall, and said, "Got anything on a planet called Earth?"

"I might have some. Anything in particular?"

"Fighting styles. I'm extremely interested in how a human fights all those different styles."

"Be right back with you." The alien went into the back of the stall, and came back with several disks. "These are all I have on the fighting styles of the humans on Earth. How much you gonna pay for these?"

Battle Star tossed him a small pouch of credits. "100 credits, and no higher."

The alien smiled, and said, "Nice doing business with you. By the way, what's your name?"

Battle Star turned as she walked away, saying, "My name is Battle Star, and you best remember it."

As she walked through the rest of the market, a particular stall caught her eye. It had different weapons hanging on the walls, and several job forms on the counter. Out of curiosity, she walked up to it, and saw one job form for a gladiator's ring.

"What do I need to do to get into this job?" She said, while holding up that particular form. The alien behind the counter looked up.

"You need to be a good fighter." He said in a rough, cracking voice. He obviously was a retired gladiator.

"Do I have to be tested somehow? I've been training for most of my life, and I'm a very good fighter." She showed him her four weapons.

"Aye, but can you actually WIN? THAT'S the question, miss." He turned to the wall, and took down a dagger, which he proceeded to clean and sharpen.

"How do I get into this job?" She stared at him with an intensity in her optics that was like fire. The fire of a warrior.

"I'll take ye there. Do ye have a shuttle at the port? If ye do, you may need to move it to the arena port. That's the safest place for long-term parking." He put the dagger back on the wall, and began to close up shop.

"Very well. After I am tested, may I fill out this form?"

"Yes."

* * *

They were in her shuttle, and the alien was giving her directions on how to get into the parking space next to the arena. After they got in, the alien was talking to the owner of the arena.

"Yes, she says she's a good fighter, and no newbie would be carrying weapons like THOSE." He pointed to the weapons that Battle Star carried, and the owner rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

"You! Femme! Come here." Battle Star looked at the owner of the arena, and walked over.

"Yes? You wanted to see me?" She looked down at him. He was about a head shorter than she was –still pretty tall though- but he was a bit wider.

"How about I give you a test run as our first match today? That way, we will know what you are capable of. One thing though. Make sure to give the audience a show."

"I shall do my best, sir." She was led away by some guards, who showed her where she could warm up.

" _ **LADIES AND GENTLEMEN! TODAY WE HAVE A NEW FIGHTER, BY THE NAME OF BATTLE STAR! SHE'S COME ALL THE WAY FROM CYBERTRON, SO LET'S GIVE HER A WARM WELCOME!**_ " Battle Star walked out through the heavy metal doors into the arena. It had plenty of room to run around. Several metal protrusions with which she could swing into her opponents. This was going to be fun. After the announcements were over, she faced another Cybertronian, this one a blue and green mech, who was armed with a blaster and a mace.

She immediately took off running towards him, fleet as the wind that flowed through the arena. The mech tried to bash her with his mace, but she swiftly dodged and drew her dagger. When he tried to shoot her, she blocked and absorbed the blasts with the blade of the dagger. With a feral grin, she pointed the dagger at the mech, and it released a blast of energy at his blaster hand. He dropped his blaster with a howl of agony, and glared at her with rage.

"Femme! You will not prevail! This may be your first gladiator fight, but it will also be your LAST!" He charged with his mace, and barely missed hitting her in the head. She pulled her axe off of her back, and used all of her strength to swing it downwards towards his head. She missed the head, but she cleaved off his left arm at the shoulder, which started gushing pink energon and other fluids. She then proceeded to flip into the air, and land with both hand in a handstand on his one remaining shoulder, and doing a somersault forwards and throwing him into the wall. Naturally, that meant she won.

* * *

Battle Star stood in the office of the arena's owner. They had been staring at each other for a few minutes now, but then the owner broke the silence.

"You're in. You put up a good show out there. I'll give you a cut out of the earnings of your fights. How much do you want?"

"I want to get 20% out of the earnings."

"That's too high! 12%?"

"15% and no lower."

"Deal." They shook hands, and Battle Star left the room. She went out to her shuttle, and started to fiddle around with little bits of machines she had collected over the time of her wanderings through the stars. Soon, she started to tinker, and had created a small robot. It looked a lot like a cat, and she even made a small t-cog for it. She said to her new creation, "Transform into welder mode."

The robotic cat obliged, and Battle Star used it to fix the small cuts she had on her hands. She didn't know where she got them from, but she guessed that she had cut her hands when she landed on that mech's shoulder. She allowed her new creation to transform back into its normal mode, and gave it a command to stay put.

As Battle Star walked in the market, she looked in the stalls that had different schematics for different kinds of generators, and stalls that had mechanical odds and ends. She ended up buying a plan for an experimental generator, and several strange-looking metal parts that she could find a use for.

"Hey, femme, over here." Battle Star looked around, and saw a shorter mech standing in the shadows of one of the stalls. She walked over, wary, and stopped three feet from him.

"What do you want?" She gave him an irritated look, but he was unfazed.

"I want to give you an… _offer._ I believe you were the one fighting in the arena today, am I correct?"

"Yes, what's it to you?" She became even more irritated. This mech, who was about three heads shorter than her, kept her from finding the rest of the stuff she needed to buy.

"I need a fighter. The best. I run my own arena. The death matches. With your skill, you could kill _countless_ opponents." He grinned in a way that Battle Star could tell was _not_ friendly.

"Sorry, I've already accepted a job at THIS arena. Now, if you'll excuse me-" She stopped suddenly when the mech grabbed her by the wrist. In her processer, she was thinking, _Oh, he did NOT just do that! He's in BIG trouble!_ She turned and grabbed his wrist in turn, digging her slender servos into the wires below the armor. The mech grimaced, and let go of her. For good measures, Battle Star cut the motor relays that led to his hand, and walked away, leaving the shorter mech holding his hand in the shadows.

* * *

Her fights were the most popular events in the arena. She always made them exciting, and her fights always sold out early. However, she soon had to leave when the arena was closed down, because the arena had been illegally buying captured Autobot soldiers to fight. She wasn't involved, so she got of scot-free. She went back to her shuttle, and her robo-cat leaped onto her lap when she sat down in the pilot seat. They took off, leaving yet another lifestyle behind.

* * *

" _WARNING! Systems failure! Prepare for impact!_ " The shuttle's damaged systems were trying to reboot, as it and Battle Star were heading for a crash landing on a green and blue planet far away from Cybertron. Battle Star had recently sold her robo-cat for enough money to buy more fuel for her shuttle, and now they were crashing.

"Come on….COME ON! Stay up! Don't crash!" Battle Star was frantically pushing at the half-operational controls, begging the shuttle not to crash. They were going down too fast. _Primus… I'm going to die! I don't want to die!_

Battle Star's descent did not go unnoticed. Her shuttle could be seen in the starry sky like a comet streaking down to Earth. Optimus Prime and the Autobots saw her shuttle heading for a crash landing from the Ark, and Prime insisted they go investigate.

"But Prime, we have no idea if that's a ship at all! It could easily be a meteor! Why do you insist on investigation?" The black and white Datsun was driving right in front of the red semi, with the rest of the Autobots driving behind them.

"Prowl, even though we know not who or what is in that shuttle, I know for _certain_ it's a shuttle. I can feel it in the Matrix." Prowl couldn't argue with that. The Matrix often gave Optimus Prime special information, and it was always right.

* * *

When the giant cloud of dust from the impact settled, Battle Star woke up from automatic stasis lock to a world of pain. "Aah!" She clutched her left arm, which was badly bent and torn. She couldn't find her medical supplies. Setting her jaw firmly, she dug through all of the stuff that had fallen on the floor, trying to find whatever would be useful. "Oh, scrap." She noticed that she was missing her dagger, the one her teacher had made for her, and she dug even faster.

When she had salvaged the most important things from her shuttle –including her dagger- she kicked at the door to try to get out. "Come on, come on…" The door swung open with a squealing sound of grating metal. Battle Star shouldered her bag of supplies, and went outside to see where she was.

"Aah!" She shielded her optics with her one good arm, as she stepped out in front of dozens of beams of light. When her optics had adjusted, she noticed that they were all vehicular forms. Then, they transformed, and the world exploded around them.

* * *

The Autobots were not the only ones who had noticed the shuttle's descent. The Decepticons had also made their way there, and had fired upon the Autobots the moment they saw them. Battle Star was so shocked, she could not move. Someone tackled her from behind, just in time to avoid getting hit by a missile launched by one of the Seekers.

"Who are…." Battle Star stopped midsentence as she recognized who had saved her. He was small, red, and had horns. "You…" It was the same short mech who had set her free, all those millions of years ago back on Cybertron.

"Heh. I was wondering what had happened to you." Cliffjumper got off of Battle Star, and went back to rejoin the fight. Battle Star suddenly caught sight of Optimus Prime, and the world as she knew it fell apart. He looked to similar to her teacher, that for a moment she couldn't make sense of the situation. Just then, Megatron himself caught sight of Battle Star, and he felt hate rise within him. He _hated_ femmes. He charged, not noticed by Battle Star, who was trying to make sense of the situation. So many bad memories. Seekers, Megatron, teacher, death… it was too much to handle.

"Look out!" Battle Star turned, and saw Megatron barreling towards her with rage. She leaped up, and landed on the shoulders of Soundwave. Taking advantage of his height, she grabbed his shoulders, planted her feet in his face, and launched straight at Megatron. One arm useless, Battle Star was forced to draw her dagger, and stab Megatron right next to his spark. A serious wound, but not deadly.

"Decepticons, RETREAT!" Megatron took off into the air after Battle Star had taken the dagger out of his chest, in preparation to stab him again, and the other Decepticons followed.

Battle Star stared after them, whispering, "Take my life, my friends, and my home, and you will regret it forever."

* * *

When Optimus walked over to her to thank her for her help, she freaked out and ran. He looked too much like her teacher, who was dead. Optimus just watched her go, confused and feeling hurt, while his two seconds sifted through the wreckage of her shuttle to see what information they could find.

"Prime, I suggest we take this craft back to base to see if we can get its computers up and running." Prowl had exited the shuttle, and walked up to his leader.

"I agree, but I wish we could have brought the owner of the shuttle with us as well. She fought well. And she is injured." Optimus Prime transformed, and the Autobots managed to make a larger trailer that could be hooked up behind his regular trailer, and get the shuttle onto it.

"Prime. What did you find at the crash site?" The team medic had come out, and then took a moment to assess the situation. Prime had come back to base with another, larger trailer, and a wrecked shuttle.

"Ratchet, we need you and Wheeljack to find whatever information you can in this shuttle. It may answer some of our questions."

"Yeah, like how that femme ran away when she saw you." Prowl had transformed and walked up to join the conversation.

"Femme? Ran away when she saw Prime? That makes no sense. Was she a Decepticon?"

"You know there are no femme Decepticons. Besides, this femme had no faction symbol. She's a neutral." Jazz had also joined the conversation at this point. "I also think that she'll be looking around for her shuttle sometime, so she might come back."

Ratchet thought about this, then decided to let it stand for now. "Wheeljack, come on out. I need you to help me with the injured first, then we need to search a shuttle."

* * *

Battle Star was on a strange world, with strange creatures, and no idea what to do. Her logic circuits threatened to short out, because she knew her teacher was dead, yet that mech looked so much like him… She was confused, lost, and afraid. She was also hurt and in pain. She still had some scars from her time in the gladiator arena, and she wore them with pride, feeling that if she removed them, she removed her past experiences.

At the Ark, Wheeljack and Ratchet were having a hard time fixing the computer to the wrecked shuttle. Ratchet finally got frustrated, and said, "We need Perceptor to help us repair this computer programming. He specializes in programming, so we need him. This computer is a mess from the impact. But I don't know why it crashed in the first place. As far as I can tell, it was some kind of impact that knocked out half of the shuttle's systems before the crash."

"I will ask for him to be transferred from Cybertron. I'll also send an image of the femme that come out of the shuttle to Ultra Magnus, so that he can search the Cybertronian database for a match, since our computer doesn't have all the records of the Cybertronians that are still functioning. Although, I wouldn't be surprised if she's not in it, because Iacon doesn't pay that much attention to the neutrals." Optimus went to his office, and uploaded an image of the femme onto a data stick, as well as the transfer orders. _I might as well send someone home for a while. I believe that Powerglide has been wanting to get back to Cybertron, so I'll send him._

As Powerglide got into the spaceship form of Omega Supreme, Optimus gave him the data stick to be given to Ultra Magnus upon Powerglide's arrival at Iacon. "Don't worry, Prime. I'll make sure that this message gets to Magnus safe and sound."

"I am glad to hear that Powerglide. Be careful." Optimus watched as Powerglide and Omega Supreme left Earth, and headed for Cybertron. Optimus and the others would have to wait for four days until Perceptor came to Earth. Four long, hard days.

* * *

Battle Star checked her tracer. She still had a bead on her shuttle's homing beacon, but she was running low on energy. Eventually, she would have to find some way to get herself some energon, so that she wouldn't drop from energy depletion. A few minutes later, she was on the edge of the forest, and she saw a ship stuck in the side of a volcano. Every now and then, as she watched, a Cybertronian would come out of the ship, walk around for a bit, sometimes practice their aim with a blaster, and then go back inside. She looked around the open space that circled the volcano, and saw her wrecked shuttle right beside a door in the rocky wall. She had to fight the urge to run right over to it, because there were two Cybertronians that were always walking around and inside it. Sometimes they would carry something from the shuttle outside and into the light, then go put it back inside.

"What are they doing?" Her voice was quiet and soft, so the two mechs studying her shuttle didn't hear her. She took a chance, and moved her way to the point in the forest closest to her shuttle, so she could better understand what was going on. As she strained her audio receptors, she was just barely able to make out some of their conversation.

"Wheeljack, I know we need help with this. Perceptor will be here soon. Omega Supreme should be arriving here with him any minute now."

I know, Ratchet, but I just want to see what the story behind this shuttle is. When he gets the computer logs operational, maybe he can figure out what happened."

After that, Battle Star wasn't able to make out any part of their conversation, because the mechs both went inside of the shuttle together. "Why are they trying to access the logs? Unless… Oh no." The sudden realization that they were trying to also find out more about HER hit her hard. She had always been secretive, because she felt like if she shared her painful past, the floodgates would burst, and she would never have her level of control over herself ever again. She had only shared a bit of her past with one being before, and that was her teacher. She had told him about how she was captured to be a slave, and how the small red mech had set her free.

"Wheeljack, I told you, Perceptor will be here soon." Ratchet was trying to calm Wheeljack down, but he, too, was frustrated at how little progress they had had on restoring the computer of the shuttle.

"I know, Ratchet, but I really want to know more about this shuttle. You know me, I always want to know how something works. For example, look at this little device that I found among the stuff that had fallen on the floor. I don't know what it is, but I have a vague idea of what it does. As far as I can tell, it is a kind of energy generator, so that the owner of this shuttle could make herself energon while in space." Wheeljack had picked up a small device that still had a small, empty energon cube stuck on one end.

"Shh!" Ratchet held up one hand, and listened to a message on a silent radio transmission. _Perceptor and Omega Supreme are here. Meet them at the Ark Entrance._ They're here. We better go meet them."

Battle Star saw both Wheeljack and Ratchet leave her shuttle, and go around to the entrance of the ship. Seeing the opportunity, she dashed to her shuttle, and went inside. She sifted through her things, until she found her small generator. Taking a quick look outside to make sure nobody was there, she ran back to the forest, and crouched down behind a thicket of evergreen trees. They were a perfect shield against prying optics, and she turned the crank to the generator with her good arm, using the electricity it created to fill the energon cube still attached to the generator. When it was full, she took the small cube, and drank it down.

"Perceptor, it's good to have you back. We need your help with restoring a computer. Did Ultra Magnus know who the femme that it belongs to is?" Battle Star froze in the middle of filling her cube a second time. She knew that name. It was the name of the one she protected in her last job as a mercenary.

"Yes, Wheeljack. Ultra Magnus says that she was hired once to lead an expedition to get him out of Decepticon territory. If not for her bravery and valiant efforts in the fighting, he might not be functional today." They continued on to the shuttle, and Battle Star waited to continue making her energon until she could not hear them anymore. After she drank her second small cube, she felt fully charged again. She would have to figure out what to do about the three mechs poking around inside her shuttle.

* * *

"Optimus?" Optimus Prime looked up, to see Perceptor standing at his desk, holding a data stick.

"Yes, Perceptor?"

"I believe I have found the reason why she ran from you when you tried to thank her. Just play the footage I have on this data stick, and you will undoubtedly see why she reacted the way she did."

Optimus Prime turned on the monitor on his desk, and sent the data into it. The screen immediately started playing clips of the femme Battle Star walking in an abandoned city on Cybertron, and seeing a mech in a cloak standing in the middle of a street at the edge of the city, looking out over Cybertron. The video feed switched to Battle Star hesitating, then walking out towards the mech. He heard their first conversation, and was startled when he heard the mech's full name: Battlelock Prime. It then switched to different clips at different parts of her training, each time Battle Star getting better and better, then switched to when her teacher gave her the four weapons she always carried. Then the recording switched to the battle between the two fighters, and Megatron and his Seekers. Optimus Prime found himself crying when he saw Battle Star's teacher torn apart, and heard Battle Star's cry of loss. He saw her when she broke free of the Seekers, and then the video cut to when she accepted the job of protecting Ultra Magnus. He saw her bravery and ingenuity, and he also saw her determination. The video then switched to recordings of her fights in the gladiator arena, and he found himself afraid of her might. The last part of the recordings was a short clip of her with a sorrowful and painful expression when she had seen him in her first battle on Earth. Then, the screen went dark.


	2. Chapter 2, Need for Revenge

As she hid in the forest, Battle Star contemplated all that had happened to her since her first day of existence. She had been taken into slavery, freed by the Autobot Cliffjumper, become a warrior, lost her teacher in the most painful way she could imagine, taken jobs as a mercenary, taken to traveling in space, become a gladiator on a faraway planet, become jobless again, gone to the far reaches of the universe, crash-landed on a strange organic planet, fought her worst nightmare, seen a mech who looked almost just like her dead teacher, run into this organic forest, reclaimed her energon generator, and now she was just sitting in the forest near the Autobots' base.

"How swiftly things change…." Battle Star looked at the generator in her hands. She had built it from some experimental designs that she had purchased in a market. She looked back at the Autobot base, and briefly wondered whether or not they would accept her, but she swiftly brushed that though aside. _They wouldn't want to accept someone like me. I'm an opportunist. But… I heard those mechs discussing how I had saved Ultra Magnus, so maybe… NO! I will NOT go there… at least not yet…_ She crept farther back into the forest, and pulled some branches over her to camouflage her purple, green, and blood-red paint job, while she rested.

* * *

"Prime? Are you all right?" Optimus Prime looked up from the screen that had just gone dark. He felt full of pity and sorrow.

"I am fine, Prowl. It's just… I've never seen anything full of such suffering, yet such formidable abilities. That femme, she's more than we thought she was." Optimus Prime paused, replaying the death of the one called Battlelock Prime in his processor. That femme must have been devastated. If that footage had revealed anything, it was that the femme –whose name is Battle Star, he remembered- had felt much affection for that mech. He remembered seeing her horrified expression when she saw her teacher torn apart by Megatron and his Seeker clones. Then, he thought about how she had escaped death herself. She had leaped from one Seeker to the other, until she was on the outside of the flock of Seeker clones.

"Prime, is there anything that you want to talk about?" Prowl looked at Optimus with a neutral expression.

"Prowl, I think that the mech called Battlelock meant more to Battle Star than Elita-1 does to me. I don't know how that's possible, but it is." Prowl nodded: Optimus Prime and Elita-1 had always felt an incredible amount of affection for each other. Optimus vented out air, and said, "I now know why she was afraid of me. That Battlelock looks extremely similar to me, or is it the other way around? Either way, she thought she was seeing the impossible. She knew her teacher was dead, yet it looked like he was standing right in front of her. When I approached her to thank her, it must have been too much, and she ran."

Prowl was mentally filing away the conversation for later thought, so that he could try to make more sense of the femme's behavior. Then, he said, "Is this Battle Star a threat to us Autobots?"

Optimus Prime looked up, and said, in a soft voice, "All I know, is that we don't want to be on the wrong side of her weapons."

* * *

Powerglide was flying above base while this conversation was occurring, and he noticed some movement in the trees.

"Powerglide here. I just caught sight of something big moving in the trees. Should I land to investigate, or wait for others to come?" Powerglide waited for a response. It did not take long.

* _Powerglide, this is Prowl. We are sending Mirage and Hound to your coordinates. Can you get a general idea of what you saw?_ *

"It is kinda mostly purple, with green, and some spots of bright blood-red coloring. Too slim to be a Constructicon. What do you think it is?" The radio was silent. Then, Optimus Prime's voice came over the comm.

* _Powerglide, I'm on my way with Mirage and Hound. When we arrive,_ _ **stay in the air!**_ _This could get a little violent if we're not careful._ * The comm went dead, and Powerglide turned to circle the trees where he saw the movement.

* * *

Optimus Prime, Mirage, and Hound drove towards the trees, and saw Powerglide circling overhead. They cautiously made their way into the forest, searching for what Powerglide had seen. Suddenly, a dagger flew out of an especially thick section of forest, burying itself in a tree, not three inches away from Mirage's face. Mirage stared at the blade out of the corner of his optics, and Optimus Prime and Hound froze in their tracks. It was the same dagger that Battle Star had used to stab Megatron when they first found her and the shuttle!

"Battle Star! We know you're out here! Please, let us talk peacefully!" Optimus Prime was ever-hopeful that they could come to good terms with the femme, because she seemed more lost and afraid than anything else.

"Why have you come here? Why are you spying on me and sending soldiers after me?" Battle Star was barely visible behind a screen of thick evergreen branches. Her pale gold optics glowed in the shadows of the trees, making her look less like a femme, and more like some kind of predator.

"We did not send soldiers after you except this one time, and Powerglide only saw you by chance."

"I saw what your mechs were doing to my shuttle. Why were you trying to get my information?"

Optimus Prime because visibly sad at that, remembering what he had seen on that video footage. "I-I only wanted to understand how you felt, so that we might understand why you ran from me. You had a look of such pain and sorrow on your face when you saw me, but I didn't know why."

"And you feel you understand me NOW?! How can you POSSIBLY know what it feels to lose everything that you lived for? How can you POSSIBLY know what it feels to lose your entire LIFE?! I have felt more pain than you can ever know. I have half a mind to show you my emotional pain in physical pain."

Optimus looked sad at what she was saying. He truly did not fully know, but he knew enough from when he lost Cybertron, Alpha Trion, and when he almost lost Elita-1. "I know quite a bit about this kind of pain. I have lost a mentor of my own, and I've lost my first home, and I almost lost my love. Though I cannot claim to have lost as much as you have, I understand how painful this must be for you."

Battle Star's hard gaze softened visibly through the screen of evergreen needles, and Optimus Prime wondered briefly if she would come out. She shifted in her stance, and the Autobots could barely make out the poor condition of her left arm. It was mangled from the crash, and the shape of the arm matched a large dent in the control panel on the shuttle that they hadn't been able to identify the cause of until now.

"Why should I trust you? I am neutral. Aligned with no side. The Autobots only liked me when I was on their side, and even then they were not inclined to trust me with more than they deemed fit to give me to do my jobs." Battle Star seemed on the verge of a systems meltdown from the wave of emotions that washed over her. Fear, sorrow, irritation, devastation, and most of all, rage. Optimus Prime could see that she has let loose emotions that she had bottled up inside of her for millions of years.

"Battle Star, we want to help you. Please, let us help you." He offered a hand to her, and for a moment, Battle Star was lost in the past. She had been given a most similar offer by a very similar mech. Even though she held no special love for the Autobots, she thought that they could help her. Suddenly, she dashed out of her hiding place, and threw her arms around Optimus Prime, sobbing. Optimus gently put his arms around her, and tried to give what comfort he could. The other two Autobots on the ground were stunned. Just moments before, the femme had been full of anger and resentment, but now it was as if the floodgates had broken open, and all her pent-up emotion had been let loose. She cried and cried, and Optimus calmly and patiently held her in his arms, letting her hold onto him for as long as she needed to. He had been right. She wasn't all cold and angry. She was full of sorrows unmatched by any. She had mourned her teacher in her own way, yes, but that way was keeping all that emotion locked inside of her, and she had done so for millions of years.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have attacked you, but I was just so… scared. I was also angry at the Autobots for not watching the Decepticons closely enough to save my teacher. I'm so, so sorry…" She broke off crying again, and Optimus felt deeply touched by her apologies. She was more like a youngling than he had thought she was. She must have had her innocence stripped away from her at an early age. He gently stroked the top of her head, trying to calm her down.

"Come, let us get you back to our base. We can figure out where to go from there, after we get your arm repaired." Battle Star reluctantly let go of Optimus, and went back to where she had been hiding. Confused, Optimus followed her, then saw her pull out a small device with an empty cube attached to it. Mirage decided to lend a hand, and removed the dagger from the tree next to his head. He shivered at the memory of how close it had come to taking out his left optic, and realized that she could have killed him if she really wanted to. The realization was almost enough to melt his processor.

* * *

"Prime, I-" Ratchet stopped midsentence when he saw the tall femme being ushered into the med bay, Optimus Prime's left arm around her shoulders, and her own left arm mangled. Ratchet's medic training took over, and he tried to get her to sit on a berth, but she shook her head and pressed herself against Optimus.

'It's all right, Battle Star. This is Ratchet, our medic. He's going to fix your arm." Optimus could feel her trembling. "Would you like me to sit with you?" Battle star nodded her head shakily, and Optimus led her to the berth, and sat down with her.

Battle Star was afraid of this place, that much was obvious. She had probably never been in a med bay before, as she had always depended on herself to get repairs. Optimus felt deeply for her in his spark, mostly because she seemed to be using him as a sort of shield against all the strange things going on. As Ratchet repaired Battle Star's arm, his patient kept her optics flicked off, and her head against his side. Optimus continued to keep his arm around her, to let her know that he was there for her. _This femme is full of surprises._ Ratchet finally finished the repairs, and dismissed them.

Battle Star kept her arms wrapped around herself, leaning into the Prime, as they both walked down the corridors. As they passed an Autobot mech who was about a head shorter than them, the mech looked at Optimus strangely, but gave no questions. It was obvious that the femme had been through a lot. Battle Star continued to lean into the Prime, seeming a lot like a traumatized youngling, yet still with the battle scars showing that she was a warrior. She seemed to be a ghost, a shadow of her former self. Yes, she still had the scars, and yes, she was still an exceptionally tall and strong femme, yet it seemed as if her bravery, courage, and resolve had left her, leaving behind a femme who was emotionally unstable. She was like a broken doll.

* * *

"Prowl? Can I talk ta ya' for a while?" Prowl looked up, and saw Ironhide standing in front of his desk.

"What would you like to discuss?"

"It's about that femme I saw leanin' against Prime in the corridor. I saw her in that battle for the broken shuttle, an' she seemed to have changed. What happened ta' her?"

Prowl turned back to reading reports. "If you need that information, you would need to talk to the three who had brought her back from the forest. I have not been briefed on what happened yet."

Ironhide left Prowl's office, and searched the Ark until he found Hound sitting in the rec room with Sunstreaker and Sideswipe, the twins.

"Hound! I need ta' talk to ya'."

"Ok, Ironhide, come over here and sit with us. I'll tell you whatever you need to know."

"I need ta' know what's goin' on with that femme you and the others brought in. She was fierce in the battle the first time I saw her, now she's just leanin' on Prime wherever she goes. What happened ta' her?"

"Well, to make a long story short, Optimus looks extremely similar to Battle Star's teacher, and she's been keeping her emotions bottled up inside of her for millions of years, ever since the Decepticons killed her teacher. Before we brought her in, she kinda just let it all out because Optimus Prime reminded her of her teacher so much, and also because of the way he was trying to convince her to come with us.

"She had thrown a dagger at Mirage, and barely missed his face, and she apologized for that, and she kept apologizing for everything else she's done to make Optimus sad. It was as if the floodgates holding back her emotions just burst, and she just started to cry, and she had her arms wrapped around Prime, and he gently held her as long as she needed him to. Now, it's like Prime is her support system, keeping her safe, and helping her recover from her pent-up emotions."

After Hound had finished, all the Autobots at the table were silent, mulling over what he had said. Ironhide finally got up, and left, and the three left resumed their original conversation.

* * *

"Optimus, do you forgive me for all that I've done?" Battle Star spoke for the first time since she had been taken out of the forest. She now looked at Optimus with sad, gold optics.

"Of course I forgive. You have already been through more than I can claim, and you deserve to be a bit angry at the universe. You have lived a life of more hardship than I have ever seen. Don't worry, you are safe here, and you will be allowed to join us when we fight the Decepticons again, but only when you feel strong enough."

"Thank you." Battle Star put her head against him again, and they went into the rec room. All the Autobots stopped what they were doing, and stared. Optimus led Battle Star over to an empty table, and let her sit down. He got them both some energon, and sat down next to her. Battle Star immediately leaned against his shoulder, as if still seeking some comfort from him. She took her energon, and drank it down slowly.

"Battle Star, if you need to talk about anything, just let me know. I'll be here if you need to talk." Optimus opened up a small square in his battle mask, and poured the energon into it. "I'll be here."

* * *

For the next couple of days, Battle Star slowly recuperated from when she had let all of the pent-up emotion flood out of her, and gradually became less dependent on Optimus to give her emotional support. Yet, she still accompanied him wherever he went. She began to see him as a sort of second teacher. _I have a chance to have everything I had before again, and more. Although this Prime cannot use blades as well as I can, he can teach me how to be a good Autobot, and he can teach me wisdom. I will try to make him proud of me. I_ _ **know**_ _I can make him proud of me._

As they were walking towards the sparring grounds outside of the Ark, Battle Star saw something that she had never seen before. It looked like a giant beast of some kind, with three horns on its head, and it walked on four legs.

"Optimus, what it that?" Battle Star started to walk closely behind him, as if using him to shield her from the metal beast in the corridor.

"That's just Slag, one of the Dinobots. Don't mess with him, because he has a bit of a temper." The two walked as far away as possible from Slag in the corridor, and they finally made it outside.

"Is there anyone in the base that uses blades to fight with?"

"Yes, Springer does, and so does the Dinobot leader, Grimlock. However, I do not believe you should be challenging a Dinobot at this point in time- or ever, for that matter." Optimus shuddered slightly at the memory of when the Dinobots were tricked into following Megatron's orders, and had almost destroyed him. Battle Star either didn't notice it, or ignored it.

"Do you think I could spar with this Springer? I think that I could teach him a thing or two."

"Do you think you are up to it?"

"It's not a matter of whether or not I'm up to it, I just don't want to get rusty on my fighting skills." She had a determined look in her optics that Optimus had not seen since he had watched that video on her past.

"Very well, I'll tell him to meet us out here. I think I'll watch to make sure that the sparring doesn't get out of hand."

"Very well."

* * *

"Optimus, you wanted me to meet you here?"

"Yes. Battle Star needs someone to spar with, and she specified that she wanted to use her blades. There are a limited amount of Autobots that use swords, so we decided to have you spar with her, instead of Grimlock."

"Good choice."

Battle Star was already waiting in the cleared area of dirt, sword drawn, waiting for Springer to fight with her.

"You ready?"

"I've been ready for a long time now." Battle Star rushed at him, barely giving him enough time to draw his sword to block. "Remember, I'm probably more skilled than you are."

They sparred for a while, somehow drawing a crowd in a large circle around them. An Autobot taller than Optimus Prime came to watch as well, interested by the sound of metal against metal.

"Hmm…me Grimlock think me can do better."

Optimus Prime looked up at Grimlock. "You haven't trained like she has."

"Me Grimlock think about that…"

When the sparring was over, Springer was on his back in the dirt, and Battle Star had the point of her sword resting on his chest. The crowd around them went wild with approval, because never had they seen such swordsmanship before.

"So, who's next?" Battle Star had a feral grin on her face, and it seemed to Optimus like the Battle Star from the video feed was standing before them. Confident, happy, dangerous. She seemed to be in some kind of trance for a moment, lost in the memories of her sparring matches with her teacher, and then she shook it off, the grin returning to her face.

"Me, Grimlock, fight you now!" Grimlock walked into the sparring area, and Battle Star hesitated as she seemed to size him up.

"Is you, Battle Star, afraid of Me, Grimlock?"

Battle Star had that wild grin on her face again. "Of course not. I've probably trained and fought with my blades longer than you have."

Optimus stepped between them before Grimlock could respond. "I do not think that sparring with a Dinobot at this point in time is wise. Perhaps when you have regained more of you strength, you can fight with him."

The two he was separating both said "No!" at the same time. Optimus was shocked. _How can Battle Star be this confident in her abilities? She's never even_ _ **heard**_ _of the Dinobots until a few hours ago!_ But he relented. There would be no way to stop the two from fighting.

"Very well, you may spar, but don't kill each other." He directed the last part of that statement mostly at Grimlock.

"Well then, Grimlock, Let's spar. I've got a few tricks that could be useful in fighting someone like you."

"Me, Grimlock, not weak! Me, Grimlock, can crush you like bug!"

However, Grimlock was surprised when Battle Star started the match by dashing straight for him. Grimlock drew his sword just in time to block her from slicing his arm open. Optics wide, Grimlock struggled to keep up with Battle Star's attacks –each one fast as lightning- as Battle Star worked her way around until she was standing on his left side. From there, Battle Star grabbed one of the big Dinobot's "wings" that turned into his dinosaur body, and swung up onto him. Grimlock panicked then –he was not used to being climbed on– and tried to get her off. As all this was happening, Optimus Prime and the other Autobots watched, optics wide, as they saw something that had never happened before. Grimlock was being bested by someone smaller than him! At last, Battle Star was able to get into a handstand on Grimlock's shoulders, and she swung her feet over his head, bending him and herself until her feet were solidly on the ground, and she _threw_ Grimlock into the cliff of the volcano.

"Well, then, how did I do?" Battle Star brushed off her hands, and smiled widely at the gathered Autobots. Grimlock, in the meantime, was trying to extricate himself from the cliff.

"Me, Grimlock, say you, Battle Star, cheated!"

"And how, pray tell, did I cheat? By using my own strength to win the match?"

"Well…"

Then Ratchet spoke up. "Battle Star, you are the first bot I've ever seen besides Omega Supreme and those the same size as him that was able to throw Grimlock like that. No other bot, no matter if they were as big as Optimus Prime or smaller, was able to do that."

"You're a flatterer, Ratchet."

"Um, can someone help me, Grimlock, get out of cliff?"

* * *

Battle Star, after she was done sparring, decided to look around the base by herself. Optimus agreed that she should begin to integrate herself into the crew, so that they could work better together as a team. Optimus had gone to a meeting with his senior officers, so Battle Star walked around the base aimlessly.

"Hey, Battle Star, wait up!"

She turned, and saw one of the two Lamborghini twins running towards her. It was the red one, Sideswipe.

"Oh, hey Sideswipe."

He stopped in his tracks. "Y-you know my name?"

"Of course I do. Optimus briefed me on each member of the crew. Although I must admit, it took me a while to be able to put a name to a face."

"Do you… think I could walk with you for a bit?"

"Sure. Not like I have much else to do. I've just been wandering."

The two walked around the base together in a companionable silence. Everyone else was either in the officers' meeting or in the rec room, so they had most of the base to themselves.

"Hey, Sideswipe?"

"Yes?"

"Did the Autobots ever think twice about where I might have gone after I helped to save Ultra Magnus?"

"Well…"

"Just tell me truthfully."

"All I really know is that Hot Rod kinda wants to know what happened to you, and that Ultra Magnus feels that he owes you, big time."

"Well, it IS nice to have someone owe me a favor."

They fell into silence again. Sideswipe had run out of things to say, and Battle Star seemed to not be in the right mood for conversation at the moment anyway. Suddenly, an alarm sounded.

"What's that?!"

"That's Teletraan 1's alarm system! We're under attack!"

Something snapped inside of Battle Star. Sideswipe could see it in her optics. Where there had been wonder and curiosity before, there was now a cold, hard rage. Battle Star turned and briskly walked back the way they had come. Following behind her, Sideswipe had to move his legs faster as he tried to keep up. They could hear explosions now, and blaster fire.

"Sideswipe, stay _behind_ me! This is gonna get messy."

* * *

The two were the first ones out of the base. Battle Star waved for Sideswipe to stay inside the base, and she leapt into the air as Megatron was about to fire at the Ark's entryway. In the blink of an eye, Megatron was falling, as was Battle Star, and the two tumbled to the ground. Battle Star had tucked into a ball as she hit the ground to minimize impact damage, but Megatron was not able to avoid a heavy impact face-first into the dirt.

Battle Star, what should I do?" Sideswipe was frantic. He knew he should help somehow, but he was frozen in place.

"Just keep back! Go get the others if you need to! I'll stay out here and keep them busy!"

Sideswipe ran back inside of the Ark, straight towards the meeting room. There was no alarm system in there, so the officers probably knew nothing about what was going on.

"Megatron, you are going to _pay_ for what you did to my teacher."

Megatron was confused. What he did? He did not recall seeing this scarred femme before.

"You do not recognize me? Well, let me refresh your memory core. Cybertron, 4.5 million years ago. A seemingly abandoned city, yet with two bots living in it. An energon raid. The bots were one femme and one mech, both approximately the same height. The mech looking _extremely_ similar to Optimus Prime. Maybe if you don't remember, perhaps one of your Seekers do? I seem to recall seeing that red and white one there."

All of the Decepticons froze. Why was this femme speaking to Megatron like that? What was she talking about? Suddenly, Starscream remembered what she was talking about.

"Megatron, she's the femme that got away that day."

Megatron was struck with fear as he, too, remembered what had happened in that cold, dark city. The femme had been a formidable fighter, yet still young.

"Y-you!" The fear turned to anger. "You should have joined the Decepticons when you had the chance!"

"Join the same faction that killed my teacher? No way! I had preferred being a neutral, but now it seems as if I am better suited to being an Autobot. Did you know that **I** was the one who led the rescue mission that took Ultra Magnus out of Shockwave's clutches? That **I** was a prizefighter in a gladiator arena? _**I**_ made my own lifestyle, but all that was taken away. Remember that shuttle that you had sent that spaceship to knock down? I was on that shuttle. You doomed yourself to die at the hands of one who has trained since she was only 3 days old!"

"I will NEVER fall to one like you! _I AM MEGATRON_!" Megatron got out of her grip, and started to fire his fusion cannon at her. She easily blocked and absorbed the blasts with her dagger and sword, then fired them straight back at him.

* * *

"Prime! **PRIME!** " Sideswipe burst into the meeting room with a panicked look on his face. "The Decepticons are attacking! Battle Star is out there alone!"

"WHAT?!" Optimus swiftly got off of his chair and charged out the door, followed by the other Autobots in the room.

As they made their way outside, they could hear the distinctive sound of Megatron's fusion cannon, and another sound they had never heard before. It was a bit like hearing thunder and a waterfall at the same time. When they got outside, joined by the Autobots who were in the rec room, they saw Battle Star singlehandedly fighting all of the attacking Decepticons. Her sword and dagger were what was causing the strange sound, as they released the energy that they were absorbing from blocking the blasts from Megatron's fusion cannon.

"MEGATRON!" Optimus Prime charged at him, and knocked him off of his feet.

"Prime! I was wondering when you'd show up! I was surprised that you did not respond to an attack at your front door as swiftly as you usually do!"

Optimus gave no answer other than to punch Megatron square in the face. Megatron retaliated, swinging his fist at Optimus' chest.

* * *

"Jazz! Look out!" Battle Star tackled Jazz to the ground, seconds before Starscream's null ray would hit its mark. All around, there was battle, and chaos. Then, she saw Megatron and Optimus fighting. Everyone else was occupied, so they did not notice that there was one Decepticon not accounted for. Where was that blue Seeker? Then, she saw him sneaking up on Optimus, preparing to fire on him.

"OPTIMUS! BEHIND YOU!" Battle Star ran as quickly as she could, but it wasn't fast enough. Just as Optimus turned to see what was wrong, the blue Seeker fired, and it hit Optimus square in the chest. Optimus fell, and Battle Star caught him moments before he hit the ground. _No, not again. I can't lose a teacher again! If only I had been faster!_ Battle Star was suddenly filled with such rage, that it seemed as if she was surrounded in flames. The fighting suddenly froze, as they saw Battle Star gently lay Optimus Prime on the ground, and get to her feet, energon splattered on her chest and legs. Her optics -which were normally a soft, pale gold –solidified and darkened, until it seemed as if they were suddenly made of pure solid spheres of golden hate. The sight of her rage alone was enough to bring some of the Decepticons to their knees, as she slowly walked towards Megatron and the blue Seeker. She took her giant double-bladed battle axe off of her back, and continued to pace towards them.

" **You** … you killed my first teacher, and you would try to kill my second. You stripped me of my home, my way of life, my very reason to exist, and yet I still function. I have kept it all in, and now I let it all out. I now release my rage, my fire, my lust for revenge."

Megatron and the blue Seeker stepped backwards each time she stepped forwards. Finally, their bravery abandoned them completely.

"Decepticons, RETREAT!" Megatron and all the Decepticons flew off, and Battle Star was left on the ground, burning with rage at what they had done to her, no matter at what point in time, her life was always ruined by the Decepticons and their leader, Megatron. She would have her revenge.

* * *

"Will he be all right?" Battle Star was only allowed into the med bay after she had cooled own and locked her rage away, and now she was standing next to Optimus Prime, worried.

"Will you let me finish my examination?!" Ratchet was just about ready to hit her upside the head with his wrench, then throw the wrench at her to get her to shut up.

"Sorry."

Ratchet finished examining Optimus, and shook his head sadly.

"I'm afraid there's nothing I can do. The blast took out some of his major systems. I don't have the parts necessary to repair him."

Battle Star felt close to crying. She had already lost one teacher close to her. _If only I had been faster, I could have saved him…WAIT!_ She opened a compartment on her hip, and drew out a small, tubular device. It was just the right size to fit in Ratchet's hand, while still allowing the top to poke out above his fingers. On the top, it had a small slit with some kind of sensor in it.

"Ratchet, use this. It's a special device I made that instantly heals injuries wherever the beam hits them. Watch." Battle Star activated the device, and a flat beam was emitted from the slit in the top. Wherever the beam passed over Optimus, the parts inside of him that were damaged were fixed, and the places that were completely gone were regenerated.

"Battle Star, when did you build this?" Ratchet was amazed. Here, right in front of him, was a new level of Cybertronian medicine.

"I built this device soon after I lost my first teacher. I had been injured myself, and I didn't have any of the right tools to self-repair, so I built this." As Battle Star was explaining this to Ratchet, the device finished its job, and she flicked it off.

"Well, I believe that we could put that device to good use here. I can't tell you how many times I've had to spend weeks on end repairing one Autobot. With this, we could get the ones that are the most badly injured out of my med bay quicker, and probably save lives that would otherwise be lost." Ratchet and Battle Star watched as Optimus Prime's optics flickered on, and he sat up.

"W –what happened?"

"We won the battle, but we almost lost you." Battle Star could barely keep herself from throwing her arms around him and crying into his shoulder from happiness.

"We almost lost you, Prime." Ratchet began to run some tests to make sure that everything was completely healed. "It was all thanks to Battle Star and her device that you are now without a scratch."

"I thank you, Battle Star. I doubt that the Autobots would have been able to defeat the Decepticons without you or me. I am their leader, and they would be hard –pressed to find another Autobot that could wield the Matrix."

* * *

The rumors flew all through the Ark about Optimus Prime's miraculous recovery. Wheeljack and Perceptor started to ask Battle Star and Ratchet constant questions about what happened in the med bay, but they both had the same kind of response: the irritated brush off. Ratchet's way of brushing them off was chasing them with a wrench. Battle Star simply stared them down with her dagger in her hand. Although it would scare them away for a little while, they always came back.

"I swear, Ratchet, if they don't start leaving alone soon, I'm gonna snap and go all Unicron on them."

"I know what you mean. Hey, do you think you could make me an upgraded wrench? I need better tools."

Battle Star grinned with understanding. "I'll make you one, if you can keep them away from my wreck of a shuttle while I build it. My shuttle is like my workshop."

"It's a deal." They shook hands, then went off towards the shuttle, which the Autobots had moved closer to the outside door to Wheejack's lab. Battle Star immediately started to work on building Ratchet's new wrench, and Ratchet stood outside with his old one, acting like a very angry guard dog. Whenever either Wheeljack or Perceptor came by to grill either one of them, Ratchet successfully chased them off.

"Ratchet! I'm done!" Battle Star came out of her shuttle, carrying a normal –sized wrench that had glowing blue lines in it. It had a button on the middle, and whenever she pressed it, a bolt of energy blasted out from between the two points on the end.

"That's perfect! Is it also adjustable so that I can use it on all sizes of bolts?"

"Of course it is. You doubt my craftsmanship? I learned from the best, you know."

"I know, sorry for doubting you."

They walked back inside, after Battle Star locked up her shuttle, and they immediately ran into Optimus.

"Where have you two BEEN?!" I've been looking all over for you!"

"Sorry, Optimus. Ratchet asked me to make a new wrench for him, and he was making sure that neither of the local scientists got into my shuttle workshop to try to ask me questions about… you know… that time."

"I understand. I wouldn't want to be forced to share the information about my recovery either. Now, I need you both in our officer's meeting. NOW."

"Both of us? But… I'm not an officer. I'm not even an Autobot yet!" Battle Star could not figure out why in the world they would need _her_ at the meeting.

"We need you, because you know more about fighting and what's in space than we do. You've been fighting for most of your life, and you've traveled in space a lot more than we have."

"Well, then, I guess it's time to show what I know."

* * *

"Now then, since we finally have everyone here, we can get down to business. As we all know, the Decepticons have been trying to build another spacecraft. The question is, where are they getting the parts from? The parts that our scouts have discovered in the Decepticon base are far too advanced to have come from Earth's resources, so my theory is that they are getting them from other races in the universe. The question is, who would trade with the Decepticons?"

Battle Star reviewed all of her experiences with alien life forms after he had finished talking, and then it hit her. _It must be the ones who captured me when I first saw the stars!_

"Battle Star?"

"Oh! Yes, Prime?"

"Do you know of any races that might trade with the Decepticons?"

"I know of not _a_ race, but _several_ races working together. The only ones I know who would stoop low enough to trade with the Decepticons, are the ones who first captured me when I first came online. Their main trade is slaves, but for the right price, they will trade parts and such to anyone who offers to buy them."

"Do you know what they are called?"

Battle Star tried to remember what the symbols on the leader's clothes were, and she took out a datapad, and used a servo to draw those symbols to the best of her ability.

"These are the symbols I saw on their leader's clothing. I don't know what they mean, but I think that it's the name of their organization."

Prowl took the datapad from her, then walked over to the computer to run a few scans to see if they were part of any language known in the universe.

"The language is Kretaaren. It says, 'Death Dragons' when I run these symbols through the translator."

The room fell silent. Battle Star was mulling over this new information, trying to see if the name struck a familiar tune in her memories. _Death Dragons…the ones who caused the arena I worked at to shut down! They were trying to put it out of business so that they would buy the arena for their own uses!_ Battle Star slammed her hands down on the table.

"I know where some of them might be, but we need a ship. Prime, you watched the video of my past, right? Remember the footage about some of my battles?"

"Of course I do. I would always remember those, because I was so awed by your abilities."

"Well, that arena was closed down, and I remember hearing that when it was sold, a group called the Death Dragons bought it. I think they still have it, though I can't be sure."

"Are you sure?" Prowl looked at Battle Star with a gaze so intense, that it might have been able to burn through metal if they were turned into lazers.

"I am certain. The Death Dragons are the ones who bought the arena, and the last time I saw that arena after it was sold, there were lots of different aliens bringing in what looked like giant cargo ships, and smaller shuttles that looked like they were brand –new."

Optimus Prime started to pace around the room. He knew he had made the right choice in bringing Battle Star into the meeting, but she was right: they needed a ship. It was not good enough to just use Omega Supreme, they needed to make a stop at Cybertron first to pick up reinforements.

"We need to contact Ultra Magnus."


	3. Chapter 3, Prepare to Infiltrate

Ultra Magnus walked around his office in Iacon Tower, frowning. He had just received a message –as well as a few soldiers –from Optimus Prime, saying that they needed some reinforcements and a ship to go to some arena. He had also been requested to go.

"Let me get this straight, Prime wants me to get you a ship, and have me and some of my soldiers to come with you to an old gladiator arena? Does this not sound a bit crazy to you?"

Prowl had a neutral expression on his face, as usual, and seemed to think it over for a little bit.

"Prime has sound reasons for bringing soldiers to the arena. Is this a secure location?"

"It's the most secure room in the tower."

"Then I shall talk freely. We have recently discovered that the Decepticons have allied themselves with a group called the Death Dragons. They have been smuggling advanced ship parts to Earth, and now the Decepticons are building a highly advanced warship to get off of Earth, and possibly attack Cybertron with."

"How do you know all of this?"

"The information on the Death Dragons was given to us by an ex-mercenary. You may remember her. She says that she was the one who led the mission to rescue you millions of years ago, after Prime and the rest of us were stuck on Earth. Her name is Battle Star. You probably don't know this, but when she was newly sparked, she was taken into slavery by the Death Dragons, and after she rescued you, she went to work in a gladiator arena. The very gladiator arena we are going to attack. You see…" Prowl relayed all the information that Battle Star had given them at the meeting. All throughout this, Ultra Magnus' expression became more and more awed. How strange it is that the femme who had led the rescue all that time ago had been so important in discovering where the base of the Death Dragons was located, and that she had somehow ended up on Earth.

"And we are certain that she is telling the truth?"

"She has no reason to lie. If I were to guess, she does not want to lie to Prime, because he has become like a second teacher to her."

"I see. Well, then, I shall order a ship readied, and I will choose which of my soldiers to bring. Have you brought anyone besides Battle Star and yourself who is of great strength?"

"Yes, a giant mech by the name of Skyfire. He fights when it is necessary, but he is also a scientist. He will be a great asset in the coming battle."

The two mechs walked out of the room, and parted ways, one going to gather troops and prep a ship, the other to ready more troops for another trip into space.

* * *

"So, we are to go to this arena that you used to work at?" Skyfire stood over Battle Star, with interest showing in his optics.

"Yeah. The Death Dragons made it go out of business, and then bought it themselves. I can show you a holographic blueprint of it. I was going to show everyone anyway, so that we know where all the chambers and corridors are."

Just before she activated the hologram, mechs came into the barracks, including Ultra Magnus. She froze. Ultra Magnus looked around for a few moments, before settling his optics on her. She was different than he remembered. Before she had left to buy a shuttle and went into space, she had been unmarked by either blade or blaster, but now she had small scars on her face and midsection. She even had a large scar on her left arm –the only reminder of her crash on Earth –and he felt like he was staring at an entirely different femme.

"Battle Star."

"Ultra Magnus. It's been a long time. I see that you are still intact from when I was hired to rescue you from Decepticon territory."

"I did not expect you to be here. I honestly didn't think that I would ever see you again."

"Oh, did you miss me?" Battle Star's voice was slightly musical when she said that, and it made Ultra Magnus' energon grow hot. He didn't know why, but he liked her. A lot.

"Ultra Magnus, we need to see you in the launch hanger. The ship is prepped and ready for departure."

"Noted. We're on our way."

As they left, Battle Star quickly grabbed her hologram projector, and her data stick with the coordinates of the arena on it. She was the last one out of the barracks, right after Skyfire, who had waited for her at the door.

* * *

Battle Star was at the navigation console. Since she was the only one of them who knew the way there, it was up to her to guide the ship.

"Battle Star, did you make a recording for how to navigate the arena when we get there?" Perceptor had walked up behind her, and was waiting patiently for her answer.

"Sure did, Perceptor. Here." She handed him her holographic projector. "Just activate that, and it will have glowing points and audio to explain what each part of the arena is. I was lucky enough to be allowed in all parts of the arena when it was still used for gladiator fights."

Perceptor left the bridge, and went to the briefing room. Currently, Battle Star was the only one on the bridge, since everyone on the ship had been called to the briefing room for a rundown of what is where in the arena.

* _Ultra Magnus to Battle Star. How long until we arrive at our destination point?_ * Battle Star immediately switched on her comm unit.

"We'll arrive within three Earth hours. Until then, give the others a chance to study the recording I gave to Perceptor so that they can memorize the layout of the arena. But be warned: the Death Dragons may have added new tunnels underground that I will not know about. They may have even expanded the original arena above the surface, though I doubt they would go through the trouble of tearing it down and rebuilding a new one from scratch. That's not how those people work. They love money, and will get the best results at a minimum cost."

* _Understood. Just make sure you get us there. Ultra Magnus out._ *

Battle Star turned her comm off, and turned her attention back to her monitor. Something strange was coming. Something big. Outside, a strangely shaped ship was heading straight for them, at a high speed.

"Battle Star to all crew members! Hang on, and brace yourselves for a possible impact!" Battle Star screamed over the ship wide radio, at the same time as swerving the entire ship to avoid getting hit by the oncoming ship. At the last second, the oncoming ship fired on them, and took out one of their engines.

* * *

Skyfire was holding onto Prowl and Perceptor as the ship began to shake.

"Hang on, you two! I won't let anything happen to you!"

"Skyfire, can you get me to the bridge?" Prowl looked at Skyfire with a determined expression.

"I'll try, but it won't be easy."

"You can do it. Since you're the biggest, you can keep on your feet better. And you can reach both walls with your hands, so that you can brace yourself against any more shudders in the ship."

"Hang onto my back. Make sure you don't let go!"

Skyfire held onto the doorway with both hands –Prowl and Perceptor on his back –and pulled himself into the corridor. He propped himself up onto both walls, and practically pulled himself towards the bridge. _Luckily, these doorways were altered so that I could fit in them._ When he entered the bridge, they immediately saw what Battle Star was trying to avoid.

"It's about time you guys showed up! I can only do so many things at one time!" Battle Star heard them coming in, and she was still frantically trying to avoid getting rammed by the oncoming ship.

"How can we help?" Prowl came up behind her chair, and put a hand on her shoulder.

"You can help by taking the controls for the weapons! I don't know how, but I feel that these creatures in that ship want us dead!" She took a sharp turn as the oncoming ship swerved to try to ram them again. "It doesn't help that they took out one of our engines!"

Prowl hurriedly got to the weapons controls, along with Perceptor. "Perceptor, you keep an eye on energy levels. We need to make sure we don't expend too much energy during this battle. We need to get through this battle without too much damage and energy loss, so we can still reach our destination point."

"I understand, Prowl."

"If you two boys are done talking, then start fighting! I'll try to keep us in the best position to keep avoiding getting rammed, while at the same time being able to shoot that other ship!"

Skyfire, in the meantime, had reached the ship wide comm. system. "Attention everybody! We are under attack! Get to battle stations, and get repairs started! I repeat! We are under attack!"

* * *

Ultra Magnus was making his way as quickly as he could to the bridge. He had heard Skyfire's warning just a few minutes ago, and was a bit frantic to get to his station. He was needed in the captain's chair. Sure, they were doing fine so far, but in a battle like this, they needed a commanding officer to give orders and get both the navigator and the gunners in sync.

"Wheelie needs help, can't do it himself!" Wheelie was trying to get a fallen metal beam off of a white and blue Autobot that Ultra Magnus recognized as Mirage.

"Hold on, Wheelie, I'll help you get him out." Magnus stopped running, and grabbed the metal beam with both hands. Working together, the small Autobot Wheelie and the much larger Autobot Ultra Magnus managed to move the metal beam off of Mirage.

"Wheelie, I need you to get Mirage to the med bay. First Aid will be waiting there. If you need to, get someone to help you. I am needed on the bridge."

"Will do, luck to you!"

Ultra Magnus smiled as he once again worked his way to the bridge. There was something about Wheelie that made everyone happy. Finally, he reached the bridge, and he stumbled inside. The giant monitor screen showed the ship attacking them, and he balked in surprise.

"That's a Quintesson ship!"

"What's a Quintesson doing here?" Battle Star looked up briefly from the controls. She had met one once, but not under the best of circumstances. However, they had needed each other to survive. _I hope I never have to get a Quintesson repair job EVER again._ Battle Star shook off the memory, and turned her attention back to the controls, while still using a small part of her concentration to listen to what Magnus had to say.

"My guess is that they are still hunting Autobots and other Cybertronians. Quintessons don't like us, but we have recently discovered that they are our creators."

"I already knew that they were our creators about 3 million years ago."

"How did you do that?"

"Can we talk about this AFTER we get out of this battle? I'm trying to keep us from getting rammed here!"

"Sorry."

Battle Star suddenly swerved the entire ship to the left, just in time to avoid another collision. "Now, Prowl!"

Prowl fired all of the ship's cannons on the starboard side, damaging the Quintesson ship. After that, the Quintessons left the battle zone, and the Autobots could continue on their way.

* * *

"Battle Star, do you know where we are?"

"I'll check my navigational readout." She pulled up their coordinates, and vented air in relief. "Luckily, we aren't too far from our original course. I can get us back on track in no time. However, that battle placed us a full hour behind schedule."

Ultra Magnus briefly cursed their bad luck, and then went onto the ship wide comm.

"All units, the battle is over. Get outer repair teams on that damaged engine immediately."

Battle Star was able to take a break for a while, since she was not allowed to make the ship go anywhere while the engine was being repaired.

"Battle Star?"

She turned, and saw Ultra Magnus in the corridor behind her. "Yes, Ultra Magnus?"

"You were going to tell me about how you discovered that the Quintessons were our creators?"

"Ah, yes. I'll tell you all about it. I was just heading to the rec room for some energon. Want to talk there?"

"By all means." Ultra Magnus felt his energon grow hot again as he listened to her voice. _Why do I feel this way about her?_

* * *

When they entered the rec room, it was empty. They got some energon, and sat down at a table.

"Now then, from the beginning?"

"Of course, Ultra Magnus. Now then, about 3 million years ago, I was travelling amongst the stars, and my shuttle was struck by a small meteor. I had to make an emergency crash-landing on the nearest planet –a barren desert with absolutely no life whatsoever –and try to make repairs. However, I was damaged in the crash as well. Luckily, my shuttle's hull was still intact, so I was protected from the frequent sandstorms that plagued the planet. I didn't know how long I was there, but after what seemed like forever, another shuttle crashed on the desert planet. And inside, was a Quintesson.

"I think of it now as a cruel twist of fate that both creator and created had ended up crash-landing not three mechanometers from each other. I tried my best to avoid being seen in my shuttle, but I guess my shuttle was in better shape than the Quintesson's shuttle. It braved the sandstorms, and got inside my shuttle, and it immediately saw me, trying my best to repair my own damage. 'Well,' it said, 'It seems that one of the Quintessons' renegade Transformers is in need of _assistance_.' I was a bit shocked at first. I demanded what it meant by that, and it told me about how they had built the first Transformers, and how they had gone rogue, and started building more of themselves. I was getting a little annoyed, and was considering killing it, but it said to me, 'I need you, and you need me. I shall repair you and let you live, if you agree to take me back to the rest of my kind.' I couldn't argue with that, so I reluctantly agreed.

"I am never one to go back on my word. I always keep my promises, as long as I feel that the other party involved has kept their promises. So, the Quintesson repaired me, and helped me repair my shuttle. A few hours later, I was travelling through space with that… _thing_ in my shuttle, and I couldn't get it to its friends and off my shuttle fast enough. Sure enough, the Quintesson kept its word, and kept its friends from killing me. After that, I hoped I would never see another one of them again, but it was wishful thinking, as today has proved."

* * *

Everyone who worked on the bridge returned there, right as the repair team was coming back in.

* _Perceptor to Ultra Magnus, the engine is repaired, and we can now continue on our way to the destination point._ *

"Thank you, Perceptor. Ultra Magnus out. Battle Star, resume course for the arena. We need to get there as quickly as possible."

"Right away, sir."

Battle Star guided the ship back onto their original course, and then continued guiding it towards the old arena.

"We'll arrive in two hours. Get the others ready to see where the Death Dragons store everything. And I'd prefer not to blow the arena sky-high, if you know what I mean."

Ultra Magnus did indeed know what she meant. She had too many memories there for her to destroy it, but she would not get in their way if it was the only way to stop the Death Dragons from sending parts to the Decepticons. Two hours passed, as the Autobots prepared to send the scouting team out.

"Sir? We've arrived. I've activated the ship's cloaking system, so that the Death Dragons don't know we are here. We're going to need to cover up the scouts' Autobot symbols. We're going to need to go through the market first, and I don't want to cause a stir. I know my way around the market too, because I went there often. I doubt the sellers I had become acquainted with have left, and quite a few of them owe me favors."

"We are, indeed, lucky that you are here, Battle Star. The scouting team is ready. We have Mirage, Bumblebee, Prowl, and Perceptor ready to go."

"We'll use my old shuttle to get down there. I repaired it back on Earth, so we can still fly it. If I use my shuttle, it won't cause too much panic. Sure, some might remember seeing me in the arena when it was still used for gladiator fights, but they would most likely ask me for an autograph."

Battle Star left the navigation station, and headed to the shuttle bay to give her shuttle one last look-over to make sure everything was still working. After a few minutes, the four Autobots that she had on her team came into the shuttle bay, all of them with their Autobot Symbols covered in paint.

"All right guys, get in. Remember, I drive, and follow me lead. You are supposed to be my newest partners, so please act a bit tough. And that goes for you too, Bumblebee." Battle Star opened the door to her shuttle, and let them all in. Just as she was climbing in, she heard footsteps behind her.

"Battle Star! Can I come too?" It was Cliffjumper.

"Why do you want to come?"

"I'm just as small as Bumblebee, and I'm also tougher than him. Ultra Magnus said that if I wanted to come, I had to talk to you."

Battle Star vented air in frustration. _Oh well. If he wants to come, then he can come. Besides, he already went to the trouble of covering his symbol._ "Fine. You can come."

They both climbed in, and Battle Star briefed the others on the change of plans. "Guys, time to go." The shuttle bay's doors opened, and they flew out over the planet.

* * *

The five Autobots in the shuttle behind Battle Star were a bit fidgety. They were going into unknown territory, and they were going to be surrounded by alien life forms. Even worse, they were expected to go into an ex-gladiator arena, and destroy a group that has death in the first part of its name. The only plus side to this, was that they had someone who knew the area watching their backs.

"Cliffjumper, do you think that we can pull it off?" Bumblebee looked to the red Autobot beside him, who had almost the same design as him.

"I think we can. How can we not pull it off? We have Battle Star helping us. Don't you remember what she did to Grimlock? She got him stuck in a cliff! There aren't many bots that can pull _that_ off."

"I know, but still…"

Their conversation stopped as the shuttle landed on solid ground. Battle Star came out of the driver's seat, and went into the back with them.

"Ok, guys. Remember, you need to act tough, but not ruthless. We're not barbarians. And remember, you won't have to talk much, and please, if you have to talk, don't give away your true identities as Autobots." Battle Star opened the door, and left the shuttle first. She was followed by the Autobots in the order of Prowl, Perceptor, Mirage, Cliffjumper, and Bumblebee. She immediately turned to one of the dock guards –the same one that she met first on her first arrival here –and told him, "Keep everyone away from my shuttle, except for me and my five friends here."

"Got it. And might I say, it's good to see you again after so long. How's the mercenary work been for ya'?"

"Oh, it's been good, and it's been bad. The only thing that matters is that I have credits in my pouch, and I'm still functional."

"I'd say."

Battle Star tossed him some credits from her pouch, and she and the five Autobots continued on their way.

* * *

"Battle Star! Good to see you!"

"Battle Star! It's been too long!"

"How ya' been, Battle Star?"

The Autobots were amazed at how many of the aliens around them in the market remembered Battle Star, as they worked their way around the stalls. They maintained a silent comm. link with each other, so that the Autobots could ask Battle Star questions as they walked.

"Battle Star, my old friend, how are you?"

"I'm doing well, my old boss." Battle Star smiled. Although she had never been told his name, she would recognize that voice anywhere. ~ _Do you know this alien?_ ~ She gave Prowl a silent comm. back explaining how he had given her the job at the arena.

"I see you have brought some new friends with you. It's too bad that I lost my arena all those years ago."

"I see that you have a longer lifespan than you thought you did. I have not seen you for almost a thousand years!"

"Yes, and all those stall owners are still here too. And they still owe you favors."

"Indeed they do. Say, do you know of any place that my friends and I can stay for the night? We need a place to rest and recharge."

"I sure do! My mansion. I sometimes have Cybertronian visitors, so I have special rooms for them. I outfitted them with recharge berths. You may stay there as long as you need to."

"You are still as kind as ever."

The six Cybertronians followed him through the market, and arrived at an enormous house ten minutes after they left the market. The old arena owner led them to the rooms, and the Autobots each chose their berths to recharge in. They spent a full hour in those berths, then they got out, and started to plan.

* * *

"All right, since I know my way around this place, I will lead Mirage to the gates of the arena, but he has to stay invisible. I took a scan in the direction of the arena as we were in the market, and I detected nothing that will jam our comm. units, or his cloaking device. I will hide behind one of the pillars outside of the arena, and Mirage will go through the gates when some personnel request that the gates be opened. After that, I will record everything you observe in the silent comm. so that we know exactly what they have stored in there. If I need to, I will go in with him using my own cloaking device, but I don't want to use it unless it's necessary."

"Understood. Mirage, prepare to go to the arena." Prowl had turned to Mirage, and Mirage went and got some energon so that he could refuel and have enough power to keep his cloaking device on the whole time he was there. Battle Star did the same, just in case.

"Ok, Mirage, now that we have more energon in our tanks, we can go. Wish us luck, my friends. Prowl, make sure everyone stays here. I don't want you guys to get lost." With that, both Battle Star and Mirage left the mansion, and disappeared.


	4. Chapter 4, A Mysterious Revelation

As the two invisible Autobots made their way through the Market, Battle Star sent Mirage the map to get to the arena over their wireless download connection. ~ _When we arrive at the arena, how do we mark that we are there?_ ~ Battle Star responded that he is to make an "X" in the dirt when he gets to the pillar. She arrived at the pillar first, because she knew how to get around better in this area, and used one servo to mark an "X" in the dirt next to her feet. A few minutes later, another "X" appeared in the dirt next to hers.

"Mirage, when the gates start to open, get in front of whoever is about to go through, and go in before they do. Since I am already invisible, I will go too. Remember, from here on out, we are to split up, and meet each other back at my old boss' mansion, got it?"

"Got it."

They kept tense, and when someone came up to the gates, they ran for the gates as fast as they could. The gates began to open, and when they were opened wide enough for them, they swiftly squeezed through, before the person could come in. From there, they split paths.

* * *

 _So long since I have been here, and so much is the same, yet so different._ Battle Star snuck along the corridors, remembering where each one went, and which direction to take. She also remembered exactly where each room was, and what used to be in them. Where there was once a series of holding cells for gladiators, there were now cells for slaves. Where there were once stored weapons, there were different mechanical parts.

 _Engines, scanners, ship blasters, cannons. They've been busy these last thousand years. Though I'd gladly blow these parts up now, I have my orders from Ultra Magnus and Optimus Prime to not engage until the rest of them come._ Battle Star continued through the corridors, and somehow ended up at her old boss' old office. Someone else was at the desk now. The one who had enslaved her. She felt hot rage at the though and sight of that filthy alien at the desk of her old boss.

She could barely restrain herself from wringing his neck. She forced herself to walk out of the room and down the corridor to a different room. _Hey…I know where this room is too!_ She had ended up in the old organics' mess hall, where the organic workers and gladiators came to eat. She had visited it rarely –only when one of her fellow gladiators wanted to talk with her while he or she ate –and even then only for a few minutes at a time. As she wandered the familiar old corridors, she was mentally taking note of everything that was added to the rooms.

* * *

 _I wish Battle Star was here to guide me through here._ Mirage was getting a little bit frantic by the time he had seen the same kind of pillar in the wall for the 6th time in a row. Battle Star knew these corridors like the back of her hand, but he had only been able to study that holographic map for a few minutes! He thought that he would be trapped in here forever. Suddenly, he noticed something different about this pillar. There was a large crack in the base, and he decided to place this point on the internal map he had been working on. He was a little sad that Battle Star had to come back here after all this time. Suddenly, he heard voices coming down the corridor.

"And I believe that we should send out our next shipment of parts to Megatron in two days. That will give us enough time to prep the ship, and get a crew together."

"Good idea. And after that…" The voices faded as the two figures continued down the corridor and around a corner.

 _Lucky I'm cloaked right now or I would've been done for!_ Mirage continued back down the corridor, and immediately found a room full of space torpedoes and giant blaster cannons. _I better take note of this._ He then continued down the corridors, and realized that he had covered his half of the arena. _Well, time to head back._ Just then, he felt his energon reserves reaching the point where it was only one-fifth of the way full. He had to get out of there fast! He did his best to remember where each of the corridors to the exit was, and after much time getting lost over and over again, he made it outside. It was dark by the time he got out, but there were still aliens going in and out of the gates. He swiftly made his way out the gates, and he made his way behind a pillar. Venting air in relief, he turned off his cloaking device, and wearily made his way back to the mansion.

* * *

"Battle Star, how long do you think it will be before Mirage comes with his half of the report?"

"I don't know, Prowl. I thought he'd be here by now. Maybe he got lost in the arena. I hope not, because by now he would have shut off his cloaking device so that he wouldn't drop from energy depletion. My best guess is that if he had been forced to de-cloak, he would have either been captured, or thrown out of the arena." Battle Star was pacing back and forth across the room. She had been the first of the two to come back to the mansion, and Mirage had not yet shown up. When she had gotten to the rooms that the other Autobots were staying in, she had been on the verge of collapse from energy depletion herself. She had managed to keep her cloak on until she reached the door of the mansion, but she knew that Mirage didn't have enough energy to do that.

"Mirage will come back. I know he doesn't like to fight very much, but he's still good at it." Cliffjumper was sitting on a recharge berth next to Bumblebee. He remembered when the Autobots first arrived on Earth, and how Mirage had been able to fight the two Seekers and get them off of him. _Mirage will make it. I_ _**know**_ _he will._

Suddenly, the door to the room opened, and Mirage staggered in. Before anyone could say anything, he swayed on his feet, and began to fall. Just before he hit the ground, Battle Star and Prowl rushed forward, and caught him. Battle Star ran a scanning device over him, and found that his energon levels were dangerously low. She quickly filled a cube with energon, and held it to Mirage's mouth. Slowly, Mirage swallowed the energon, and Battle Star refilled it. It took 3 full cubes to get Mirage back on his feet.

"Mirage, what happened? We were starting to get worried about you!" Battle Star helped him over to a recharge berth to sit down, and then sat next to him.

"I had gotten a little lost. I saw a few of the members of the Death Dragons, and I heard part of one conversation. What I heard proved it: the Death Dragons are working with the Decepticons. I don't know what Megatron is paying them, but they are going to send out their next shipment in two days... wait, how long was I in there?"

"You were in there for a whole day."

"I heard that conversation about three hours before I got out of the arena. That means that they will ship out the parts the day after tomorrow."

Prowl stood then. "We have to get word to Ultra Magnus _now_."

* * *

"Thanks for keeping an eye on my shuttle." Battle Star tossed the guard a few more credits as the other five got in. Perceptor was the last one to go inside, as he was still doing calculations on his datapad. "Hurry up Perceptor. The others are waiting inside."

"Right, sorry." Perceptor hurriedly got into the shuttle, then resumed doing his calculations. The two who had gone inside the arena had given him both of their reports, and sent him copies of their internal maps wirelessly so that he could place where they had seen the different storage areas on the holographic map that Battle Star had given him.

Battle Star went into the pilot's seat, and they took off. After they reached space, Battle Star sent Ultra Magnus a message to de-cloak and open the shuttle bay doors. She guided the shuttle in carefully, and the doors closed behind them. As they got out, Perceptor finished his calculations and the alterations to what was in the rooms of the holographic map of the arena.

"Battle Star, I trust all went well with your mission?" Ultra Magnus himself entered the shuttle bay, and stood before Battle Star.

"Mostly. Mirage and I almost bought it when we had to keep our cloaking devices on too long. We had to keep them on for a full day. But, as you can see, we survived. Perceptor currently has our reports and the updated map on the arena. You may ask him for the map, and Mirage has some information that you may want to see."

Mirage walked forward, and Ultra Magnus motioned for him to follow. Just before he left the room, he stopped, and then motioned for Battle Star to follow too. As the two followed Ultra Magnus, they went over what all they saw and heard in their processors, and tried to puzzle out a few mysteries they saw as well. Mirage could swear he had seen a giant-sized cloaking device in one of the storage chambers –because he had one himself – and Battle Star could swear she could see some design specs for her own shuttle on the wall of her old boss' old office.

"Please, enter this room." Ultra Magnus had opened a door, and when they looked in, they could see a desk, a small energon dispenser, and a stack of datapads on the desk.

"Is this your captain's office?" Battle Star went in first, looking around a bit more. There wasn't much to the room, just what she had noticed a minute ago, and also a painting of Cybertron on the wall.

"Yes. We can talk about what you two saw in here."

And so, the two who had actually gone inside of the arena told Ultra Magnus everything they had seen and heard. Ultra Magnus became a little nervous when he heard the mention of the conversation that Mirage had heard, and the large-scale cloaking device he had seen.

"And you are certain they will send out the next shipment tomorrow?"

"I am, sir."

"Then we attack today."

* * *

Battle Star gathered together some of the elite fighters for her squadron, as well as a few good minds, so that she could lead the attack. With her were Prowl, Cliffjumper, Jazz, Mirage, Ironhide, Skyfire, Springer, and Perceptor. She led them to the shuttle bay, and they decided to take a ride in Skyfire, since he was bigger than Battle Star's shuttle. Before they left, Battle Star went into her shuttle, and pulled out a few bits of equipment. She had a fusion cannon that could be held in her hand, a sword with glowing blue lines on it, a few bombs, and a few blaster pistols. She distributed the equipment among her squadron, and ended up giving the fusion cannon to Skyfire, the sword to Springer, and the blaster pistols to the others. Battle Star clipped the bombs to her hips, and carried the fusion cannon while Skyfire transformed.

"Let's go, you guys. This isn't a scouting mission anymore. This is battle. Even though our enemies are working with the Decepticons, they are flesh and blood. Do not harm them, unless they manage to shoot you with something that _can_ hurt you. And even then, minimal damage. The big weapons are for the storage rooms." They marched into Skyfire, and made their way above the arena.

"Hang on, guys. I'll make a landing in the center. Keep close to Battle Star and Mirage. They know their way around, but Mirage has only seen half of it." Skyfire landed in the arena, and just as the last Autobot disembarked, they were surrounded by the Death Dragons. Skyfire transformed, and took the fusion cannon from Battle Star.

"Come on, Autobots, follow me!" Battle Star charged through the ranks of the aliens, and broke her way through the doors leading to the inner corridors. They made their way through each storage room, hearing fighting up top. Ultra Magnus must have brought the ship into the atmosphere to fight with the cargo ship! As they made their way to the last storage room, they saw it was guarded by over a hundred of the Death Dragons members. They had no choice.

"Guys, follow Mirage back up top, and I'll meet you there!" Battle Star charge towards the aliens as the others protested. "Go! I'll catch up!"

"Come on, guys. We have our orders. We have to go." Mirage led the others back to the outside, and Battle Star continued to run for the storage room. Taking all of the bombs off of her hips, she attached them to each other, and activated them all. She threw them between the legs of several of the aliens before her, and she ran for the outside as fast as she could. _Ten seconds…_ she kept running. _Nine seconds…_ She dodged past two Death Dragons members. _Eight…seven…six…five…four…_ She burst into the light and quickly boarded Skyfire.

"Get us out of here!" Battle Star quickly sat down on the floor. _Three… two…one…_ Behind them, the arena exploded in a massive burst of rock and metal. Battle Star hung her head. A lot of memories had rested in that arena, and now she had been forced to destroy it.

A hand came up and rested on her shoulder. "I'm so sorry, Battle Star. I know how much that place meant for you." It was Perceptor. He was holding in his other hand something they had stolen from one of the storage rooms. It was something that Battle Star herself had given to her old boss, and the Death Dragons had stolen from him. A small device that could use things in the air around it to create anything that it was told to, but with limited size.

"There was no other way, Perceptor. You know that as well as I do. There was no other way." Battle Star began to think about all the enemies she had defeated in that arena, and how much she had grown to like her old boss. There really had been no other way.

* * *

When the Autobots returned to Cybertron, Battle Star flew her shuttle out of the ship, and the others from Earth loaded into Omega Supreme. Battle Star and Omega Supreme traveled through space side-by-side, and it was then that Battle Star noticed that she had a passenger. Bumblebee was sitting in the back of her shuttle, and he soon came up to sit in the seat next to Battle Star.

"Are you feeling all right?" Bumblebee looked up at her with bright blue optics. Battle Star didn't take her own pale gold optics off of the navigation panels in front of her, but she nodded to him.

"I'm feeling all right, but I wish there had been some other way to deal with the Death Dragons. I wish I hadn't been forced to blow it up." Battle Star made the shuttle swerve in space to avoid an asteroid in space, and they continued travelling beside Omega Supreme. Soon enough, Earth came into view, and the two spacecraft began to land near the Ark.

"All right, Bumblebee, time to get out of the shuttle. We've arrived at base." Battle Star ushered Bumblebee out of the shuttle, and the others were getting out of Omega Supreme. She saw Optimus Prime coming out of the Ark, followed by Powerglide, Hound, Tracks, and Trailbreaker. She saw Perceptor hand Optimus the reports from their time at the arena, and they all went inside. As much as she was saddened at the loss of the arena, Battle Star couldn't help feeling happy about being back at the Ark.

She walked around the forest for a while, trying to clear her processor of all the sorrow that had recently built up. Suddenly, she got a message from Optimus Prime back at base.

* _Battle Star, we need you to help out with a mission here on Earth. We need to stop the Decepticons from making off with some highly volatile materials, so we can't use our energy weapons. Could you, Springer, and Grimlock go and stop them?_ *

She activated her comm, and said, "Sure, and I can take Bumblebee too if I let him use my dagger. I've been teaching him how to use it."

* _Very well. Please rendezvous back at base to pick up the others._ *

"Very well." She deactivated her comm, and made her way back to base.

* * *

"Grimlock! Remember, no fire!" Battle Star was starting to get frustrated with the Dinobot leader. He kept trying to breathe fire on the Decepticons, and every time risked blowing up what the Decepticons were trying to steal.

"Me, Grimlock, no want to listen to you, Battle Star!"

"Grimlock, you listen to me, or I'll stick you back in that cliff!"

THAT got his attention. He was still a bit afraid of Battle Star, all because of that one incident with the sparring when Battle Star threw him into the cliff. It had taken _all_ of the Dinobots –plus Optimus Prime and Omega Supreme– to get him out of that situation. So, Grimlock went back into robot mode, and started to fight with his sword. Springer and Bumblebee were fighting as hard as they could. In this situation, the Decepticons were at a disadvantage, because none of them knew how to fight with any blades at all. They were too afraid to use their energy weapons, so the Autobots were sure to win.

"Decepticons, RETREAT!" Megatron flew off after Battle Star knocked the materials from his hands with the flat of her blade, and the other Decepticons dropped what they were carrying and flew off too. The Autobots walked out of the human research facility they had been fighting in, and made their way back to base.

* * *

"Perceptor, what made you come here anyway?!" Blaster fire peppered around them, as the Autobots fought with the Decepticons to keep them from activating their newest sinister invention.

"I came so that I could assist in deactivating the device. I didn't want the Decepticons to destroy the Earth, so I decided to bring a few tools." Perceptor pulled out a few strange-looking tools, and then put them away again as the Decepticons continued to fire upon them.

"Well, unless we can GET to the device, your tools are useless!" Battle Star leaned out from behind the stalagmite she had been taking cover with, and shot a few quick energy bursts at the Seekers. One of them fell, but the other two still stood. They fired again, and Battle Star quickly took cover behind the stalagmite again.

"Perhaps if we call for backup?"

"Oh, NOW you think about calling for backup?! _The cave walls are filled with lead!_ The lead prevents any kind of signal from getting through!"

"Oh…" Perceptor berated himself for not thinking of that sooner. She was right to yell at him.

"Wait, maybe if I send a small drone out…" Battle Star opened a compartment on her hip, and took out a small, spherical device. She pressed a button on the side, and it turned into a small helicopter-like thing. She programmed a map into it, and it took off like a bullet. It avoided the blaster fire, and got out of the cave in the flicker of an optic.

"How can you be sure that the drone will make it to the Ark before it runs out of power?"

"I built it myself. It runs at a minimal amount of energon, and it can go for years without a refuel."

"And when was the last refuel?"

"Last night." Battle Star leaned out from behind the stalagmite again, and fired at the Decepticon called Soundwave. She hit him on the shoulder, and had to quickly duck behind the stalagmite again as the other Decepticons started shooting at her again.

"How do you suppose we could get past them?" Perceptor was starting to look panicked. He had never been in a battle this long before. They had already been fighting for three hours, and neither side had given an inch.

"Let me think…" Battle Star leaned against the stalagmite she was hiding behind, and her hand suddenly rested against nothing but air! "I think there's a tunnel here!"

"A tunnel?" Perceptor hurriedly came over to where she was hiding, and looked at where her hand was. "Yes, it looks like this was a part of the cavern, but then a cave-in buried it under what used to be part of the ceiling."

"I'll get us through there." Battle Star motioned for him to back up, and she blasted the rock with her gun at full power. The rock gave way, and opened up a space just big enough for them both to be able to squeeze through. "I'll go first. You stay here. I'll tell you if the tunnel goes where we need it to."

"Very well, but I don't have a weapon." Perceptor was worried about possibly getting shot by a Decepticon.

"Here." Battle Star handed him a spare gun she had on her, and then went into the tunnel.

* * *

"Prime, there's somethin' outside. Should I take a look?" Ironhide had walked up to Optimus, and was patiently waiting for a reply.

"No, Ironhide, I'll look. It might be something dangerous, and I don't want you hurt." Optimus walked out of the Ark, and immediately saw something similar to an extremely small helicopter hovering outside. When it detected him, it flew over, and hovered in front of his face. Optimus looked at it closely, and recognized it as the hover drone Battle Star had showed to him as she refueled it last night. He held out a hand, and it landed in his palm. Then, he went inside.

"Prime, what is that?" Ironhide looked at the small device he held in his hand, and then back up at Optimus.

"This is Battle Star's emergency drone. She uses it whenever she can't send a message with radio frequencies. My guess is that she and Perceptor have run into trouble."

"Then why'd you send them out there alone?"

"I did not expect any major trouble. But now, something tells me that there is more to the situation than meets the eye." Optimus plugged a cable into the side of the drone, and then plugged the other end into Teletraan 1. The screen suddenly showed a written message and a map of the cave that the two were in. "Autobots! Roll out to these coordinates! We need to provide backup!"

* * *

As Battle Star worked her way through the tunnel, she kept her internal map on so that she could figure out how long the tunnel was. When she found herself right behind the device, she found that the rocks above her were loose, and she worked them free. When she was certain that none of the Decepticons knew that the tunnel was there, she went back through to get Perceptor.

"Perceptor, follow me through the tunnel. It leads right behind the device. Right to the controls."

"Very good! Let us go and stop the Decepticons from activating their device!" Perceptor followed Battle Star through the tunnel, and they ended up right behind the device, just like she had said. They immediately got to work. Battle Star took a laser cutter out of her hip compartment, and Perceptor took out his tools. Over the noise of the Decepticons shooting at nothing, the sound of the tools could not be heard.

"Almost done there, Perceptor?"

"Almost… there! I'm finished." The two made their way back through the tunnel to where they were before, and Battle Star placed the rocks over the tunnel back where they used to be. When they reached the other side, they heard their backup coming through the cave.

"Prime! Over here!" Battle Star waved an arm in the air, and the red semi screeched to a halt at the entrance to the chamber. He dove under the blaster fire, and ended up hanging half in and half out of the tunnel that Battle Star had discovered. "Prime, we sabotaged their machine, but we are trapped here."

"Good work, you two. The other Autobots should be coming into the cave shortly." Just as he spoke, the cave was suddenly filled with Autobots, and they fought the Decepticons with a renewed ferocity. The Decepticons were suddenly outnumbered, and were forced back until they were right next to their machine.

"Soundwave, activate the machine!" Megatron continued to fire at the Autobots with his fusion cannon as Soundwave used his good arm to activate their machine. Suddenly, it began to shake and spew sparks everywhere. Everyone but Battle Star and Perceptor stopped and stared at what it was doing. Optimus turned to the two, and said, "What did you two do?"

Perceptor smiled and held up a small device and some wires. "We simply took out the machine's stabilizer. I have calculated the blast radius, and I have found that the blast will do nothing other than destroy the machine and cause a few holes in the floor."

"That's good… say, how much time have you and Wheeljack spent working together in the lab? You're starting to act like him."

Battle Star came up to Optimus on his left side. "Oh, Prime, I've found that almost _all_ scientists are like that. They like to push the limits."

Just then, the machine blew, and several sinkholes opened in the floor where the rock that had collapsed so long ago crumbled, and one opened right below Perceptor! He fell for about a hundred feet, until his hand caught on a spur of rock on the side. He hung on for dear life as rocks continued to rain down into the hole, hitting him and going even deeper into the sudden abyss that had opened up in the floor.

"I would like a bit of help right now!" Perceptor was panicking for real now. He was frantic about wanting to not fall down deeper, and possibly shattering on the bottom of the hole. He couldn't even _see_ the bottom!

"Perceptor, we'll try to get you out!" Optimus was almost as frantic as Perceptor was. He didn't want to lose even a single one of his Autobots. Suddenly, he noticed Battle Star standing as still as a statue, staring down at where Perceptor was hanging.

* * *

" _Battle Star, can you hear us?" it was dark all around, and Battle Star could see only a bit of color: the sight of Perceptor hanging in the hole that had opened up under him._

 _"Who are you? Where are you?" Battle Star couldn't stop looking at Perceptor. Couldn't turn away, couldn't shut off her optics. It was as if she was unable to turn from helping him. But what could she do?_

 _"We are the sisters._ _ **Your**_ _sisters. You are the one who was lost. Now, we have found you. Though we are not physically where you are, we are able to use our minds to search for you. You may not realize it, but you_ _ **can**_ _save him."_

 _"How? How can I save him? I know not what you mean!"_

 _"Search your processor. You have the knowledge. Normally, we don't guide our sisters to find their abilities, but we are making an exception here. You have gone too long without knowing. And your powers are needed now."_

 _"How? What powers?"_

 _"Search down deep. Feel the power running through the energon in your veins. You can do it. We know you can do it."_

* * *

As Optimus watched, there seemed to be a flicker of brighter gold light within Battle Star's pale gold optics. He saw the plates of metal on her back between her shoulders shift, and red, green, and purple wings unfolded and stretched. Amazed, he watched as Battle Star took off into the air, and dived down into the hole.

Perceptor was losing his grip. He couldn't hold on much longer. He had shut off his optics, not wanting to watch the walls of the hole as he fell. His servos slipped from the rock, and he began to fall. Moments after his grip failed, he felt arms wrap around his chest, and he began to rise. His optics flickered back on, and he saw familiar purple and red arms around him, and when he looked up, he saw Battle Star's face, with the scar under her left optic. But then, he noticed her new wings. _How did she gain those in such little time?_

* * *

"Prowl, where's Battle Star?" Optimus had been looking all over the Ark for her. And, for that matter, he had not seen Perceptor or Powerglide either.

"I believe that she and Perceptor are out flying with Powerglide."

"But Perceptor can't fly!"

"Battle Star is carrying him."

"What." Optimus started to feel like his whole world was spinning. He had thought he had known Battle Star, but now, with the discovery of her powers, he was starting to question himself. It wasn't just the wings, because she also had healing powers, and could summon and set herself on fire at will. Acid did not harm her, and neither did fire. She also seemed to have an innate knowledge of Cybertronian history, and instinctive knowledge of technologies lost to modern times.

"We're back!" Battle Star swooped into the entrance of the Ark, carrying Perceptor in her arms, and Powerglide landing behind them. Battle Star landed, and released Perceptor from her grip once he got his feet back under control.

"Where have you been?"

"Out flying over the Himalayas. Those mountains are really fun to practice maneuvers in!"

"Why did you take Perceptor with you?"

"Oh, he wanted to see more of how my wings work." Battle Star tucked her wings against her back like a bird does, and walked to her quarters. A day of fun had ended, and a new day would dawn tomorrow, after a good recharge.


End file.
